Mid-Century Dresser with Poets Paint Cashmere

This mid-century piece is done using Poets Paint Cashmere and Vintage White colors. Poets Paint Cashmere is a color match to Annie S. French Linen.

I seem to have an affinity for mid-century furniture pieces, along with glassware, dinnerware and other decorating pieces.  Not sure why as it really doesn’t go with most of my decorating aesthetics and room designs but I manage to get pieces in here and there and they look great.

This was a dresser in need of repair that I purchased from a thrift store for $125.00.  I new as soon as I saw it that I wanted to do it in two-tones.  I loved the simplicity of the handles and just the design itself.  It did have a broken leg which needed repair and it was something that I did not see when I initially purchased it so I don’t know if it was something that happened during delivery.  I probably would not have bought it had I seen the damage to the leg and I certainly would not have paid $125.00, but all’s well that ends well as I did end up selling it for $175.00.  I love this piece but I had no room for it anywhere.

In addition to the broken legs, it had several deep gouges that needed to be repaired.  Here I just used wood filler, let it dry and sanded.  The leg repair required a buildup of wood filler and some laminate cut to size to replace missing laminate.

Once I made all the repairs, I sprayed the whole dresser using shellac as I suspected this would be a piece that would have “bleed through” since it was from the 50s.  The shellac will prevent not only bleed through but any cracking of the paint.

I started with the Poet’s Paint Vintage White and then did the drawer fronts with the Poets Paint Cashmere.  I ended up putting four coats of the Vintage White on the top and sanding in between each coat as I wanted and really nice hard finish on top.  The drawer fronts took two coats of the Poets Paint Cashmere and again i sanded in between coats.

I also used a very fine steel wool pad to remove the grime from the handles and the result was a pretty polished but still distressed look on the handles.

Then I used a stencil I purchased on line and stenciled the drawer  fronts with the Vintage White.  If I didn’t like the placement of the stencil, I sanded it down, painted with the Cashmere again and then redid the stencil until I got the placement the way I wanted it.

Still not finish, I decided to add a pop of unexpected color on the sides of the drawers that would only be seen when the drawers were pulled out.  I chose a bright orange reminiscent of oranges used in the 50s to accent the drawers.